Slow Burn by K. Bromberg
“How’s married life?” I ask the question, knowing he’s not going to fall for it but needing to attempt changing the topic nonetheless. Besides, how Haddie is in the sack is none of his goddamn business. A litany of curses flies through my head as I realize that my not wanting to talk about her skills is a sign in and of itself of how bad I have it for her. Colton and I have talked about everyone and everything we’ve done with them before.
All except for Rylee, whom he’s now married to.
And now Haddie.
If that’s the case, then what the fuck does that mean?
He throws his head back, the laughter drawing some looks from the crew playing volleyball in the pool and luckily distracting me from looking closer at my own revelation. “I do believe you asked about married life an hour ago. Your diversion tactics need a bit of help, brother. Nice try though. ‘A’ for effort and all that.”
“‘A’ is for asshole,” I mutter. In return, he flashes me a cocky grin, which has me laughing and shaking my head. “You and your alphabet.”
“Yup. My alphabet is doing just fine,” he says, referring to his nickname for his wife, his smile so damn big, it’s still a shock to the system to see as he looks across the patio at Rylee. “Married life is good, dude. It’s Ry, you know?” he says with a shrug as if that’s the only explanation he needs.
The contentment in his voice and his relaxed posture show me the truth in his words, and I can’t help but smile. He deserves to be happy after everything he’s gone through, from his abusive childhood to the nearly fatal crash he endured last year.
“So”—he draws out the word and tips the top of his beer toward Haddie—“what gives? You’ve got this slow-burn type of thing going with her or what?”
I grunt a laugh. Slow burn, my ass. More like fire in the goddamn hole.
I exhale in frustration at the multiple contradictions that are Haddie Montgomery. “Fuck if I know, dude.” I lift my cap from my head and run my other hand through my hair before I put it back on and adjust it. “I appreciate a good mind-fuck every now and again, but she just … Man, I don’t know how to explain the shit she’s doing to mess with my head.”
He smiles at me, fighting the laughter. “Welcome to the estrogen vortex, dude, where mindfucks are the norm and understanding them is as common as a fucking unicorn in your front yard.”
“Thanks.” I blow the word out in frustration before glancing over once again to the cause of it. I don’t get it. Where exactly does Dante fall into play in all of this? If it was the fact that she wanted to play the field, that’s one thing, but if that’s the case, then why not just say it? And if so, why was she jealous of what she assumed was going on with Deena?
Fuck if I can figure her out, but damn it to hell, I want to. I want to know every goddamn piece of her. She’s like that first taste of something you can’t have—that priceless sip of Macallan poured neat—and no matter how many times you’re lucky enough to get just a splash more, it’s never enough to get you drunk.
Just a buzz to keep you wanting more.
I lean forward and pull another beer from the bucket of ice in front me on the table and pop the top with the opener. I take a sip and sigh at its taste—fucking beer when all I want is that damn single-malt Scotch.
I just can’t get her pegged: The woman who’s come undone with me is a different person from the feisty-as-fuck one in the kitchen earlier. She’s hot and cold, but damn, when she’s hot, it’s scorching, and when she’s cold, it’s arctic.
“Haddie, huh?” he says. I look over at him as he’s studying her. “Could do a whole helluva lot worse.”
I snort at him. “Yeah, well …” So many things are on the tip of my tongue. But they’d make me sound more interested than I am. Or rather than I want to let on that I am because I’m not opening that door for him to walk his sarcastic ass through.
“So what gives?”
“Apparently me.”
“Fuck, dude. That’s your problem right there. Quit being such a pussy. She’s already got one between her legs, so why would she need another one there?”
“Are you seriously insulting my manhood?”
“Well, you’re kind of being a chick right now. If you like her, take her. Shit, Daniels, what the fuck happened to you while I was on my honeymoon? Your nuts shrivel up and fall off?”
“Fuck off,” I tell him softly, his words hitting the mark and leaving me wondering.
I enjoy the beer sliding down my throat, as the previous ones start to hum in my veins and relax me—taking the edge off from walking in the kitchen and seeing her in that damn bikini. Those small scraps of fabric had my dick begging and my head thinking about how much I’d have liked to set her ass up on the edge of that counter, press myself between her thighs, and fuck her into tomorrow. My irritation over her leaving without a good-bye and ignoring my texts and calls urged me to take without giving her time to argue. To prove to her just why she needs me around.
But that in itself is so fucked-up. Since when do I want to make my claim on a woman so that I can mark her as mine? Usually I’m laid-back. A chick doesn’t like me? There’s plenty more who do. But with Haddie, hell if I know why I’m being so pansy-ass with her. I tell myself to let it go—let her go—and I realize I don’t want to.
Because she matters.
And hell if I’m going to admit that to Colton, but it’s the truth.
A bottle cap hits me midchest and draws me from my thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” he asks, a taunting smirk on his face.
“Scotch,” I answer, watching his smile fall as he tries to figure out what the hell I’m talking about. And I love that I knocked him off his game for a moment, the cocky fucker.
It takes a second but he laughs freely and just shakes his head. “Much better diversion tactic that time around. Mad props, dude.” He sits back in his chair and falls silent for a bit as we watch a heated exchange in the volleyball game that ends in a spike and a slew of curse words at a match point lost.
“So what happened? You must have whipped your little button mushroom of a dick out and scared her off—”
“Fuck off, dude. You wouldn’t know a big dick if it hit you in the face,” I rib him. If the asshole’s going to insult my manhood when I recall one drunken night in our younger years and a ruler that proved differently, I have to at least have a comeback.
The look on his face—shocked amusement—has me biting my tongue. “I assure you I will not be touching someone’s dick—with my face or any other body part of mine—now or anytime for that matter unless it’s me knocking yours into the dirt for being such a fuckwad.”
“The fact that you even think you can take me is amusing.”
“Wow,” he says, tipping his beer up to his lips and overexaggerating the satisfied smack of his lips. “You’re a cranky fucker, aren’t you? No wonder she’s over there and you’re over here. Have another beer, dude,” he says, tossing me one from the bucket on the table, even though I’m not done with the one in my hand.
“Your answer for everything, huh?” I hold up the beer and tip it toward him. “Have another beer?”
“You’re the one talking about Scotch, not me. So what gives?”
I’m torn, not wanting to talk about it but thinking it could help. Get another guy’s opinion—my best friend’s opinion—and as fucked-up as Colton used to be in the fuck-’em-and-chuck-’em department, as Rylee so politely used to put it, he knows me better than anyone. He’ll understand and set me straight. Pull me from the shit in my head that I keep running through over and over and over. Tell me what I need to hear.
Nut the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
I scrub my hand over my chin before shaking my head. “I don’t know, man. She’s spooked, and I can’t figure it out. And just when I think I do, something else happens to make me change my mind about what’s causing it.”
“Well, first off,” he says, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees,
“That is just wrong in so many ways,” I tell him but can’t fight the laughter at his logic. I point to the ring on his finger. “Says the barebacking, married man, no less.”
He looks over at me with a smug smirk that brings me back to the first time we talked about him barebacking—screwing without a condom because he knew Rylee was the one. And I have to shake my head at that memory because that conversation led to the trip to Las Vegas, where later that night I got my first introduction to one fine-as-fuck Haddie Montgomery.
“Don’t be knocking the almighty voodoo, bro,” he says, pulling me from memory lane, and tilts his bottle in Rylee’s direction. “There’s some serious fucking power there.”
I laugh with him, at him, because there has to be some real magic there if it’s turned the poster boy for how to be a player into a bona fide one-woman man. Her voodoo pussy most definitely had to have had some special powers to transform that fucker.
“Shit,” I say, reaching forward and holding my bottle up to him, “that’s worthy of a toast right there.”
He shakes his head once and a lopsided smirk says it all. “Here’s to nipples, because without them, tits would be fucking pointless.” We clink the necks of our bottles together as the mixture of way too many damn beers and my best friend happy as fuck has me laughing so hard, I take my sunglasses off to wipe my eyes.
Heads around us turn to look at the two of us laughing together, but it’s Colton. I’m used to him causing a scene wherever we go, so I don’t even think twice. But this time when I look up, I lock eyes with Haddie momentarily before she shoots daggers at me and looks away.
“Fuck, that’s like the arctic chill, man.”
“Thanks for the play-by-play, Donavan.” As if I need his commentary on Haddie right now.
“Anytime, brother, anytime. What the fuck did you do to her, anyway?”
“No clue.” I shake my head and then lean back and pull the bill of my hat down over my eyes, my silent gesture that the conversation is over.
“Seriously? You think that hat covering your eyes is going to stop me? You know me better than that. C’mon, dude.”
“Leave it.” I snap the words at him. Then I’m pissed I’m taking my shit out on him because all I keep thinking of is the image of Haddie standing in my place the other night with nothing but heels and a skirt on, nipples hard, hair falling over her shoulders.
And I stopped her? What the fuck is wrong with me? One minute I’m telling myself I’m not letting her go without a fight, and then the next, I wake up alone, her perfume on my sheets, the scent of our sex still on my skin.
Fucking Dante. It has to be because of him. What does he have that I don’t? I’ve never even heard her mention the name of an ex, let alone one who has this strong of a hold on her.
Goddamn estrogen vortex.
It’s fucking with my head because I’m sitting here, thinking about it, when I should be shooting the shit with Colton. Instead, I’m questioning everything: my own thoughts, my own feelings, even Dante.
I keep thinking back to that night, trying to pinpoint how the hell we went from fighting to her crying to her wanting more to her being gone. And it’s her falling apart that I keep going back to. It has to be everything with her sister’s death coming to a head and just exploding all at once since it seems she’s held it in all this time.
Sure we’ve known each other—hung out casually—for the past year and a half, but for a year of that time she was dealing with Lexi’s illness and then the aftermath of her death. I’ve seen her fire ebb. Her defiance slip. And hell yes, she grabs onto it every now and again, but the balls-to-the-wall, take-no-prisoners Haddie Montgomery I met that first night in Vegas seems lost. Feistiness snuffed out. Carefree demeanor now a jumbled goddamn mess of extreme highs and lows.
But hell, even grieving and a shadow of her usual self, she’s that fucking sip of Macallan sitting on a bar lined with every other alcohol known to man. Cream of the crop, top-notch class.
Motherfucking perfection.
And I can’t even think about her taste. Damn woman is addictive. Heat and sweetness, with a fucking mixture of unpredictable thrown in that has just enough edge to make you question what’s going to happen next and where the hell she’s going to take you after that.
And it doesn’t matter really because you know you’re already going along for the ride, regardless of the destination. Heaven or Hell, she makes both sound desirable.
With my prolonged silence, I expect a smart-ass remark about how I must be whipped already or how the ride feels without a saddle, but Colton doesn’t say anything like I’d expect. His trademark use of humor to escape any conversation that’s serious in nature doesn’t come. And I appreciate it, take a moment to be thankful for a friend who’s known me so long he knows I need a minute to wrap my head around everything.
So I start thinking of solutions. How to fix this problem: my wanting her and her pushing me away despite the desire clear as day in her eyes. The alcohol in my blood tempts me to resolve it by walking over to Haddie right now and tossing her over my shoulder. Lock her in a goddamn room with me until she talks, tells me how either Dante or Lexi is preventing something more from happening between us.
I need to get some fucking peace of mind and clarity for the first time since she pressed her lips against mine weeks ago.
“She’s had a rough go of it the past year.” Colton’s voice breaks our silence and probably in the nick of time because I’m about two minutes away from making a scene. My own goddamn emotions are a clusterfuck of chaos—I’m pissed at her for pushing me away, but I also want to wrap my arms around her to take that look of confusion out of her eyes and ease the anger that’s just beneath the surface that’s so tangible, it tinges the taste of her kiss.
“That she has,” I murmur softly, not wanting to elaborate since my thoughts are already owned by it all.
“Ry’s worried about her.”
And fuck, why did Colton have to say that? Because if her best friend is worried, then I’m sure as hell going to be concerned. I keep my hat over my eyes, my head leaned back, and my own voice impassive. “Understandably.”
Silence weighs heavy between us as he figures what to say next because I’m sure my lack of a response to his loaded question is unexpected. “You really fucking like her, don’t you?”
I lift the brim of my hat up and angle my head over to the side to look at him, sure the answer is written all over my face. “Just trying to figure out what to do about it since it seems she only wants to be brown-bagging it.”
He smirks at me. “Keep at it, dude. If Rylee could break me down and cause this,” he says, holding up his hand where his wedding band rests, “then shit, anything is possible.”
I let the slight smile tug up the corner of my mouth, knowing he’s just trying to be a good friend by getting me talking, showing me what could be … but I’m done talking.
Man up, Daniels. I need to start acting.
Nut the fuck up or shut the fuck up.
I’m feeling good, buzz still humming and mind made up as I walk toward the house. I wave my hand toward the pool and the guys I just up and left one volley short of match point, telling them to shut the hell up because I’ll be right back.
We’ve all had more than enough to drink by now, and it’s not like I wasn’t obvious when I saw Had stroll past the edge of the pool and walk inside. That damn bathing suit of hers taunted me like a green flag on race day but with a whole lot less fabric.
And a hell of a lot better prize.
I throw the towel I scrubbed through my hair onto the chair as I catch Colton’s eye across the deck. He has one hand on Baxter’s head and his other arm around Rylee’s shoulders, but the look he gives me—the go take what’s yours one—is followed by a lift of his chin. A silent show of moral support. I see Rylee catch his loo
I walk into the house and see Haddie immediately, that perfect backside of hers on display in the skimpy black bikini as she bends over and looks in the refrigerator. I hear the rattle of jars as she moves items around, but I can’t focus on anything else besides the sight of her ass and knowing just what is nestled in between those thighs.
I want her on so many other levels—in fact, I feel like I’m going a little crazy, trying to prove that point—but damn it to hell if I don’t want her on this level too. Tanned, toned, and tempting.
And just this simple sight has me reaffirming my decision from earlier. At all costs. That’s my new motto. I am going to make it so that Haddie Montgomery can’t resist me. Use the sex she seems to use as a shield around her to my advantage. Reel her in and then force her to understand that whatever the hell she’s running from she doesn’t have to worry about with me.
The question is, how exactly am I going to do that?
I mean the sex part is a no-brainer, but I need to make sure she doesn’t rabbit the minute it’s over. And tying her to the bed most definitely sounds like one hell of a dick-hardening option, but in the end, it earns me no trust. So my object is to make her want, make her ask for it, confuse the hell out of her. Make her want like I want, but then refuse her just like she does me.
Because I know she desires more—I can see it in those eyes of hers. I just have to figure out what it is that’s going to break down those goddamn walls but still make her feel like she’s protected from whatever it is that’s hurt her.
So I stare at the curve of her hips and decide to make my move. I step forward and murmur, “Excuse me,” when I push the door open a little wider with one hand while my other hand rests conspicuously atop the swell of her ass. I feel her body jolt, hear the startled gasp fall from her mouth, and can’t deny that surge of electric current that charges through me when we touch. It’s like a fucking live-wire that causes a momentary short circuit in my thoughts as it weaves around my balls and tugs them with the goddamn strings that are already laced through my heart.